246 replies to this topic

[NoPutt]

K11, I tried your instructions above and all went well until

I got to step 6, When I left click inside the thumbnail preview

I have no "select pixels" button. Must be my old PS7. 

Anyway, I'll get back to the grass later as I had a much larger issue.

Thanks to you and Shimonko I think I have my scale sorted.

This first pic shows the tee box I was working with in the foreground.

[NoPutt]

This pic shows what I hope is the correct scale?

If so, then I can indeed have a much smaller terrain as you suggested

before.

[M Rose]

No Putt, do you have CF or are you doing that solely in Unity?

[NoPutt]

All Unity Matthew, The Cube is a Unity asset

that I sized to a meter, the golfer is a billboard

sized to 1.75 m, and the bench is 3d that I designed

in  AC3D.com that is free to try for 2 weeks but I 

purchased it 'cause it's just so cool to play with.

[Kablammo11]

K11, I tried your instructions above and all went well until

I got to step 6, When I left click inside the thumbnail preview

I have no "select pixels" button. Must be my old PS7. 

 

Entirely my bad, NoPutt. I screwed up the magic recipe of my witches brew and gave you a wrong ingredient. It's not left-click, whatever made me write that? You have to right-click, I just checked. INSIDE the tumbnail at that - the name field to the side leads to a different submenu.

 

 

This should work with all Photoshop versions. Select Pixels is a great little way to quickly mask an entire layer and that comes in handy a lot of times.

Apologies. Mingling with dark arts always is fraught with unspeakable and dire consequences...My this curse be lifted for good.

[shimonko]

Entirely my bad, NoPutt. I screwed up the magic recipe of my witches brew and gave you a wrong ingredient. It's not left-click, whatever made me write that?

Maybe because the shortcut way of doing this is Ctrl + Left clicking the layer thumbnail (Cmd for you)?

[Kablammo11]

Please, friend: Even us Mac snobs have by now discovered the right-click and its countless blessings. And I'm not that good at using keyboard shortcuts - which would be hard to do anyway since I usually work with a graphics tablet and pen. 

No, I blame a wicked curse: The mischievous forces of the nether crafts like to confuse poor dimwits like me who dare to encroach on their sinister domain. That and my hybris in compiling the original list from memory without doing some basic fact-checking.

[shimonko]

I find the opposite - I use tablet as well and find right clicking awkward on it compared to the other hand on the keyboard. Tablet's great for moving spline points in CF though, eh?

[Kablammo11]

Eh, no...

I seem to be doing everything the other way around. Must be opposite day.

I'm not that good at multitasking and can only focus on one hand at the time. Sad, but true. In CF, I use the mouse to move the spline points, because everything else is better done with the mouse. I did try using the pen, but it actually felt more confusing than using the mouse.

In PS, however, moving the spline points of a bezier curve with the pen is a real treat. All my grass blades are drawn with such curves, for instance. And I have one of the buttons on the pen assigned to perform a right click - and using it comes as second nature to me by now. Perhaps this caused me to err earlier.

 

Let's not talk shop any more. You're doing things the cool and pro way, and I seem to be a well-meaning amateur who needs to create his own niche for everything all the time.

[shimonko]

Every pro I've worked with does things their own way - there is no cool or pro way.

[NoPutt]

Sheeesh, This edge padding is driving me nuts.

I downloaded a .png  and loaded in PS, I follow the

instructions, I go to the Actions and click "Dialate Many Times" and the Play icon

The layers load but I get this pop-up (see below). 

[Kablammo11]

Merge Layer is not an action command, afaik.

 

Highlight the desired layers by shift-clicking in the layers window, then select Top Menu > Layers > Merge. Or command E.

[NoPutt]

When I clicked the " Dialate Many"  That's when I got the pop-up and 

the Action box switched to  "Merge Layers". The only thing added

to the action box was the downloaded "Alphautility" , everything

in it was checked by default.  I hope I'm not being a pain to you guys,

but it is weighing on my mind and I can't stop until I get some GRASS.

It must be my version of PS, when I right click inside a thumbnail

I do not see "select pixels" as in your image above. Also "shift clicking"

the desired layers doesn't work for me, I hold shift and click on a layer

and it selects the first but when I continue to hold Shift and click the next

it just goes to that one and leaves the first. 

Maybe I should start drinking again.

[Kablammo11]

Woah! A man separated from hid desired grass most certainly must resort to drinking.

I had lots of similar problems - and no-one to turn to with them. But I do remember the feeling of harassed frustration that befell me. It ain't a nice one, but the sensation of triumph once that hurdle has been overcome always felt very sweet.

 

There are a lot of unknown unknowns in your sad tale, NoPutt. Your screen capture and videos seem to indicate that your are operating in the Windows universe. And judging by the absence of anti-aliasing on your letters, probably not even a recent one.

Being a Mac person myself, there is only so much guidance I can offer you.

Then there are version compatibility issues between OS, PS and plugins - a Pandora's box of intricacies I do not care to touch the lid of.

But there is ONE glaring thing I noticed when again carefully studying your image above, this one:

 

 

And this is what makes me wonder: Your original file is in PNG format. That might - or not - neatly explain most of your woes including the Select Pixels incapability.

PNG is a great little format, not to worry, one that allows for transparency but does not support multiple layers and alpha channels. You actually could import your png file into Unity as is and try to use it as a billboard - you would have do some changes in the inspector though and the desired transparency would be a bit pixelated.

But your actions only make sense if you perform them in a Photoshop Document, PSD. You need to see these last three letters on top of the window in Photoshop. So try to create a new photoshop document in the same size, then drag and drop your .png thing onto it: it will create a new layer on top of  background. Then take it from there as prescribed. Never perform any of the following manipulations on the bottom background layer!

 

Per aspera ad astra, poor pilgrim: Your path is fraught with distress, but even if you don't notice it, you are learning and getting better all the time. Mistakes are the best teachers. Oops, my triteness-overdose-alert just went off.

[NoPutt]

>>>>>>>Ka-Boom!, Gratias ago tibi

Never mind your triteness, my path is no longer fraught with distress,

and is overgrown with soft lushness that only bare feet or Footjoys can

appreciate.

The .PNG that I picked from the evil internet tree was the bitter fruit

of all my sorrows. After creating my own simple .jpg with a transparency,

it was added to the witches brew of Photoshop where it was mixed and stirred

while I chanted " Never perform any of the following manipulations on the  bottom backround layer"

POOF! The result was a simple grass but with no white edges.

The sensation of triumph is indeed sweet, and I'm happy to share it with you.

And thanks to Shimonko  for his download contribution and windows clicking help. 

I will now design a more detailed version but I know now that my grass mystery is solved.

[IanD]

Now clone them in Unity when planting and vary the colour and height... great work so far No-Putt..

[NoPutt]

Thanks Ian, The grass in the pic was just a test, I'll

design some better detailed grasses and do as you 

suggest when I start my actual design. I'm getting

comfortable with Unity, and as you see above I had

a brain hurdle with Photoshop, but thanks to K11 and 

his keen eye I made the jump.

Thanks again bud, and how about a pic of your progress?

[M Rose]

Thanks to NoPutt, I've managed to get over the Unity hump. Those videos have helped me immensely.

 

Much appreciation to you good man.

 

I've got a little three hole practice hole loop I've been working on which is very rudimentary that I'll share soon.

[NoPutt]

Thanks Matthew, good to hear / read, and welcome aboard the 

Unity wagon. It's a bumpy ride in the beginning,

 but I'm told the road gets smoother ahead.

[M Rose]

So far it's going well.... it's difficult in many ways because I have no measurements or knowledge of scale. I have a square I imported and there are three holes that fit the entire plot. I think they're probably like 1,000 yards long but I don't know for sure.

 

I've managed to slot in some textures from a Links course I've been working on and already learned how to scale them up and down. I have yet to try planting anything but that's the next step.

 

I like the quickness with which I can add mounds and the flattening tool is really handy. Making multi-tiered greens in APCD was always difficult. I'm loving the soft edges, but I'm finding that if I attempt some finer edges that they appear pixelated. Is there a way to solve that problem?